Adventures in Creative Writing

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When asked the question, “How much do you love yourself?” What is your answer? Well, I love myself enough to make sure I have food to eat, clothes to wear and a warm place to sleep. I also love myself enough to want to have close relationships with my children and family, to bring happiness to others and to enjoy intimate friendships with other people. I also love myself enough to want to hear encouraging words, compliments and uplifting messages. I love myself enough to want to avoid painful situations, to run away from abusive relationships and to have people help me and forgive me when I fail. I love myself enough to want to survive.

I have been struggling with some deep issues in recent days involving an unforgiving heart, deep disappointment and anger. I know in my head I need to let go and trust God to work situations out but I have this roiling, churning uneasiness in my spirit. In my devotions this morning, I was reading Matthew 22. Jesus was confronted by the religious leaders who were trying to attack his teaching. One Pharisee asked him a ridiculous, simple question any Jew would have known. “According to the Law of God, what is the greatest commandment?” Instead of ignoring the trite attack, Jesus answered promptly, “To love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.” But, he didn’t stop there. He looked at the smug, self-righteous leaders and replied, “And the second greatest commandment, equal to the first, is to love your neighbor as yourself.”

You see, I have been stuck on the first part. I love God on all levels and I strive to know him more personally each day. I don’t consciously do it but I can be like the religious leaders on my high horse sitting high and mighty above the “dregs of society”. I can be judgmental, and have been, and can consider my life better than some people. I pat myself on the back and say I’m not in the mud with the drug addicts, the alcoholics, the child abusers, the failures. Truth is, though, even if I keep the first commandment but don’t keep the second, to love my neighbor as myself, I’m no better than any of them.

Jesus was constantly criticized for fraternizing with prostitutes and tax collectors. He faced down his critics by saying, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17) Those were his neighbors and he was loving them as much as he loved himself. He met not only their physical needs but their emotional and spiritual needs as well. His love for God didn’t end with himself; it extended to the world around him to people entrapped by pain, hopelessness, suffering, addictions, and guilt.

I asked for God’s forgiveness for my unloving attitude, which was eating away at me, and I also asked for his help in seeing people with his eyes. In my own power, it is difficult to see the small grain of hope buried in the desperate, seeking heart of another human being but if I strive to see people as God sees them I can overcome my prejudice and judgment and love my neighbors as I love myself and as God loves me. There have been times in my life when I was no better (on many levels) and yet God’s loving eyes, his forgiveness, changed me.

How would my world change if I asked, when confronted with difficult people, “Do I love this person as much as I love myself?”

On December 26, 2015 my husband and I arrived home in the early evening after a Christmas party. I glanced at my Facebook and saw a post concerning a tornado near Dallas. We turned on the TV, to The Weather Channel, and saw footage of the massive, monster tornado moving toward Garland, Texas–where my son and his family live. My heart fluttered as my husband sent a text message to my son asking if they were okay. My son replied: “We’re in the bathtub in the bathroom right now.” There was nothing I could do but pray, in that moment, for God’s protection over my family. Minutes ticked by as we watched the devastating tornado live on television knowing my grandbabies with their parents were huddled together waiting for the storm to pass.

About five minutes later I received a text from my son: “We’re okay!” Over the next hour the story unfolded. They had heard the deafening roar of the tornado ripping and tearing things up outside their home but they were untouched. Just down the street, the story was different. Complete destruction and death was left in the wake of the storm. One breath and life was taken for granted and one breath later it became the most precious gift.

This past Saturday, on January 2, 2016, I received a text message from my sister alerting me to the fact her 9 month old grandson in Colorado was in a medical emergency. A half hour later my mother called to tell me my niece’s baby son was gone, he had passed away. The ensuing hours were filled with heartbreaking phone calls from my sister and mother. Why? What had happened? I don’t understand this God. I stood outside, looking up into the sky, crying and asking God for an explanation. One breath and life was taken for granted and one breath later it became the most precious gift.

We aren’t promised another day, another hour, another minute, or another breath. Life can change abruptly in just one second. Yet, we squander our minutes and worry and fret about trivial matters and fight over childish, ridiculous things and we don’t appreciate what we have or who we have or where we are. With one breath we can fill a lonely, desperate heart with hope or we can damage irreparably. With one breath we can reach out and help the struggling neighbor or child or family member or with one breath we can condemn and judge. With one breath life is a passing thought and in the next breath it is a treasure.

As the next days, weeks and months pass by consider the value of one breath. Think about the effect you are having in another life. Remember the God who has given you life and honor the gift by living nobly, honorably and honestly. Just one breath.